For the next 10 years, Lindsay and Craig Foreman may call one of Iran’s most notorious prisons home.

The British couple were jailed today over allegations of espionage after being arrested last year during an around-the-world motorcycle journey.

They’re currently held in Evin prison, a detention facility in Tehran where dissidents and political prisoners are held. 

Human rights campaigners have long viewed the jail as a symbol of the iron-fisted rule of the Islamic Republic.

The Foremans, who deny all wrongdoing, have described being holed up in eight-foot cells with nothing more than a hole in the floor and a sink.

Here’s what to know about the prison.

What is Evin prison?

The compound, opened in 1971, sits on the picturesque slopes of the Alborz Mountain in northern Tehran.

Within a few years, the institution gained a reputation for the conditions prisoners face inside.

In 1988, thousands of prisoners were executed after cursory trials in what the Human Rights Watch called the ‘darkest period in Evin’s history’.

Inmates include opposition politicians campaigner’s journalists, lawyers and even students, with concrete walls, electrified barbed-wire fences and a minefield between them and the outside world.

Citizens of foreign countries and dual citizens have routinely been placed in Evin, such as French nationals Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris.

The pair, who were imprisoned on charges of spying for France and Israel, were held for three years before being freed last year.

These years-long prison sentences have led to the UK and the US accusing Iran of using foreign nationals as political bargaining chips.

Also among them are the protesters who took to the streets in 2022 following the death of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian woman arrested by the country’s so-called morality police.

During the unrest, a fire broke out at Evin amid clashes between prisoners who had been staging sit-ins and chanting anti-government slogans.

Although Amnesty International said the fire was used as a justification for the bloody crackdown that followed at the hands of prison guards.

Israel targeted Evin prison last year, killing 79 people and wounding dozens, including prison guards, prisoners and visiting family members.

At least six projectiles damaged 28 buildings, reducing stretches to piles of debris and mangled metal beams. Human Rights Watch said this amounted to a war crime.

What are conditions like at the prison?

Harsh treatment and abuse are widespread, according to former prisoners.

They say they have gruelling interrogations, torture, rape, psychological humiliation and solitary confinement.

Some ex-inmates say they endured hours-long interrogations while blindfolded and the lights were constantly on in their cells to stop them from sleeping.

All they could hear were the cries from the other cells or the barks from prison guards threatening their families.

Bed bugs, cockroaches and rats are said to scuttle through the feet of the sometimes dozens of people housed in halls with just four rooms.

That includes Craig, who said he spent 57 days in confinement, which ’emotionally and physically’ broke him.

Lindsay told the BBC that she has spends her days running ‘in circles’ in the prison’s cramped yard.

She told the broadcaster: ‘I’ve resigned myself to the fact that my physical health might not be what it was when I came in but I can regain it when I leave…

‘I’m surrounded by people who are in worse situations who have to live this their entire life, so in some way I feel lucky that I’ve had the life I have until this point – and hopefully one day for me it will end.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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The death toll from a crackdown over Iran’s nationwide protests last month has reached at least 7,002 people killed with many more still feared dead, activists said Thursday.

The slow rise in the number of dead from the demonstrations adds to the overall tensions facing Iran both inside the country and abroad as it tries to negotiate with the United States over its nuclear program.

A second round of talks remains up in the air as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed his case directly with US President Donald Trump to intensify his demands on Tehran in the negotiations.

“There was nothing definitive reached other than I insisted that negotiations with Iran continue to see whether or not a Deal can be consummated. If it can, I let the Prime Minister know that will be a preference,” Trump wrote afterward on his TruthSocial website.

“Last time Iran decided that they were better off not making a Deal, and they were hit. … That did not work well for them. Hopefully this time they will be more reasonable and responsible.”

Meanwhile, Iran at home faces still-simmering anger over its wide-ranging suppression of all dissent in the Islamic Republic.

That rage may intensify in the coming days as families of the dead begin marking the traditional 40-day mourning for the loved ones.

Activists’ death toll slowly rises

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which offered the latest figures, has been accurate in counting deaths during previous rounds of unrest in Iran and relies on a network of activists in Iran to verify deaths.

The slow rise in the death toll has come as the agency slowly is able to crosscheck information as communication remains difficult with those inside of the Islamic Republic.

Iran’s government offered its only death toll on Jan. 21, saying 3,117 people were killed. Iran’s theocracy in the past has undercounted or not reported fatalities from past unrest.

The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the death toll, given authorities have disrupted internet access and international calls in Iran.

The rise in the death toll comes as Iran tries to negotiate with the United States over its nuclear program.

Diplomacy over Iran continues

Senior Iranian security official Ali Larijani met Wednesday in Qatar with Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.

Qatar hosts a major US military installation that Iran attacked in June, after the US bombed Iranian nuclear sites during the 12-day Iran-Israel war in June.

Larijani also met with officials of the Palestinian Hamas militant group, and in Oman with Tehran-backed Houthi rebels from Yemen on Tuesday.

Larijani told Qatar’s Al Jazeera satellite news network that Iran did not receive any specific proposal from the US in Oman, but acknowledged that there was an “exchange of messages.”

Qatar has been a key negotiator in the past with Iran, with which it shares a massive offshore natural gas field in the Persian Gulf.

Its state-run Qatar News Agency reported that ruling emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani spoke with Trump about “the current situation in the region and international efforts aimed at de-escalation and strengthening regional security and peace,” without elaborating.

The US has moved the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, ships and warplanes to the Middle East to pressure Iran into an agreement and have the firepower necessary to strike the Islamic Republic should Trump choose to do so.

Already, US forces have shot down a drone they said got too close to the Lincoln and came to the aid of a US-flagged ship that Iranian forces tried to stop in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf.

Trump told the news website Axios that he was considering sending a second carrier to the region. “We have an armada that is heading there and another one might be going,” he said.

Concern over Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Meanwhile, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said it was “deeply appalled by credible reports detailing the brutal arrest, physical abuse and ongoing life‑threatening mistreatment” of 2023 Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi.

The committee that awards the prize said it had information Mohammadi had been beaten during her arrest in December and continued to be mistreated. It called for her immediate and unconditional release.

“She continues to be denied adequate, sustained medical follow‑up while being subjected to heavy interrogation and intimidation,” the committee said. “She has fainted several times, suffers from dangerously high blood pressure and has been prevented from accessing necessary follow‑up for suspected breast tumors.”

Iran just sentenced Mohammadi, 53, to over seven more years in prison. Supporters had warned for months before her arrest that she was at risk of being put back into prison after she received a furlough in December 2024 over medical concerns.

WASHINGTON — With the last remaining Israeli hostage finally returned home, the real work of rebuilding Gaza is now beginning, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee exclusively told The Post.

“It’s just now really starting to take hold. Things will start moving much more rapidly now that the hostages are back,” he said. “Quite frankly, the Israelis were in no mood to start building a new life for people in Gaza until Hamas was finally held responsible for the last of the hostages.”

Israel on Jan. 26 recovered Israeli police officer Ran Gvili’s body, which Hamas had taken to Gaza after killing him on Oct. 7, 2023. With that final return, Huckabee said, Gaza is entering a new and daunting phase: the slow, incremental resurrection of a territory left in “absolute ruins” after years of war.

“This isn’t going to be an event; it’s going to be a process,” he said. “People will begin to move out of areas that are really dangerous — the red zones — into the green zones. Housing is being constructed. Utilities will be restored.”

Materials and now flowing into the territory with the first steps involving the installation of pre-fabricated homes “so people can start a new life and maybe have a future in Gaza,” he said.

“People will be able to access not just housing, but utilities that work — rebuilding a society pretty much from the rubble of a war that never should have lasted this long,” he said.

“Rebuilding from scratch”

Huckabee cautioned that the rebuild won’t be an overnight fix; the extent of the destruction could stretch out the timeline — especially depending on global commitment and funding.

“We’re talking years,” Huckabee said. “It could be two, three years. It could be 10 years. A lot of it depends on how many nations actually step up.”

Oversight of Gaza’s reconstruction will fall to a technocratic governing committee tasked with the gritty, real-world work of restoring Gaza’s infrastructure.

“This is the heavy lifting,” Huckabee said. “Electricity. Water. Sewer. Roads. Cell towers. Internet. These are not political appointees looking for an office and a badge — these are people with real skills who know how to make things work.”

Most of the technocrats, he said, will come from Arab and Muslim states in the region, chosen for technical expertise rather than politics.

“If you’re rebuilding a society from scratch, you need people who actually know how to run things,” Huckabee said. “You need people who can build sewer systems, water systems, power grids, communications networks.”

The committee falls under President Trump’s international “Board of Peace,” which Huckabee said is focused more on the funding and enforcement of standards. To date, the board’s members include 25 member states — but European Union countries have so far refused to sign on.

“I find it interesting that some of the nations that criticized Israel the most — saying they weren’t doing enough humanitarian work — you’d be hard pressed to find them doing the heavy lifting right now,” Huckabee said. “A lot of them have talked. They haven’t walked.”

A central responsibility of the group will be ensuring Hamas or other extremist networks do not infiltrate the reconstruction effort — whether through aid groups, contractors, or payrolls.

“You’ve got to make sure the people getting paychecks and doing the rebuilding don’t have ties to terrorists,” he said. “Israel has been through too much to be careless about that.”

Beyond rebuilding streets and buildings, Huckabee said Gaza must undergo a deeper transformation — including a complete overhaul of an education system he said has fueled hatred for decades.

“Education will be restored to something that no longer incites children to hate Jews or want to kill them,” he said. “That’s been part of the curriculum in Gaza for over 20 years. That’s got to stop. And it’s going to stop.”

A brighter future

Looking ahead, Huckabee pointed to Jared Kushner’s ambitious vision of transforming Gaza’s Mediterranean coastline into a thriving economic and tourism hub — a future he said investors are beginning to take more seriously as stability improves.

“People have scoffed at that vision,” Huckabee said. “But we’re in a very different place than we were a month ago. A year from now, we’re going to be in a much better place.”

He argued Gaza’s collapse was not inevitable — saying it could have become a Middle Eastern success story decades ago if not for Hamas’ grip on power.

“Gaza could have been Singapore,” Huckabee said. “Instead, they turned it into Haiti.”

To underscore the scale of Hamas’ militarization, he described Gaza as small in size but hollowed out by terror infrastructure beneath the surface.

“All of Gaza is about the size of Las Vegas,” Huckabee said. “And underneath it is a tunnel system larger than the London Underground — more than 500 miles — not to get kids to school or people to hospitals, but to shelter terror activity and hide hostages.”

Much of that underground tunnel system was destroyed in the war — along with most everything that sat above it outside of Gaza City, making the rebuild process exceedingly daunting.

“We’re rebuilding a society pretty much from the rubble of a war that never should have lasted this long,” Huckabee said, placing full responsibility for the war’s length on Hamas dragging out the conflict.

“I hope people never forget why this lasted this long,” he said. “It lasted this long because Hamas refused to let the hostages go. They held on and held on — killing people, torturing people, raping hostages, starving hostages.”

But with the war’s end and hostages now home, Huckabee said Gaza’s rebuild is finally moving in the right direction.

“It’s a gargantuan undertaking,” he said. “But we are in a better place than we were a week ago, two weeks ago, a month ago — and it’s moving forward.”